I had a folder of html files that were stuck opening using Netscape all the time no matter what was set as my default browser. Apparently the OS 9 style Creator tags were all set in them. I wanted the files to open using my default browser (which is now Chimera). One can select them all and then use the Finder's Get Info to change the opening application, but that would make them permanently open in Chimera. I really wanted to get rid of any special application to open with and have them track whatever browser is my default at the time.
Knowing that all I wanted was the data forks of the files and not the other meta-info, I used the Terminal to copy (cp) all the files to a new folder. cp being a UNIX-born command, it will copy only the data forks. What this does is strip off any resource forks and meta-data. Now the new files use whatever is set as my default browser.
Be very careful though! Only do this to files that you really know you only want the data forks. Otherwise you will wind up with unopenable empty files (like the one FileMaker database file I had in that directory...).
I think there are other hints and GUI tools to strip extra forks. But using the command line allows you to leverage all the power of complex search patterns and such that can generally only be done via CLI (assuming you are a regexp and find geek like myself ;-).
[Editor's note: You can also use this technique to reduce the filesize of image files that will be uploaded to the web. Just 'cp' them from one spot to another before uploading...]
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20030103055922939